Be Wary Of Computer Scammers, Technicians Say

Tools

Michael DeFranco is the owner of Computer Doctors a computer maintenance and repair company in Watertown.

Lately, some of his customers have been tricked by scammers. The crooks call claiming to be with Microsoft Global Company.

"They will go in and ask you for a credit card," he said. "Once they're into your computer and they'll either cause problems or claim to have gotten rid of problems that you didn't have."

The St. Lawrence Sheriff's Department released a statement earlier this week warning people to be wary of callers from Microsoft Global.

Deputies say if you have given your information to this company over the phone, you should take care of it immediately.

"They need to reach out to their banks, to their credit card provider and have alerts put on the card if not, cancel the cards," Sheriff Kevin Wells said.

Computer experts say the scammers aren't just hacking into computers at residential homes, they're also going after businesses.

Jorden Durant travels door to door fixing computers at various businesses. He says at least 10 of his clients had problems within the past couple months because of Microsoft Global.

"What we'll find is the key logger and those are little small programs that record every key stroke that you make," Durant said, "which is very advantageous to the person that installed the key logger as they can view everything that you've ever typed including bank account information, credit card information, purchase history."

DeFranco says a representative from Microsoft Corporation will never contact you out of the blue, so if you receive a suspicious call, just hang up.